Mammoth tusk in Essex

Mammoth

Volunteers uncovered a rare find from the Essex foreshore. This image of a mammoth tusk was shared around the world on Twitter. But what became of the tusk? And what does its discovery mean? The team that ‘struck ivory’ speak exclusively to Wild Essex.

I was looking for tiny shark teeth below the crumbling cliffs with a friend. We asked the man if he’d seen any teeth. He shook his head, and looked towards the pillbox. “I used to play in that as a child,” he said. “It was set back from the cliffs in the trees.”

We turned towards the cliffs and then back to the pillbox. “How did it get out there?” I said.

“It didn’t,” said the man. “That’s where it fell. The cliffs went way beyond here when I was a kid.”

Part II

CITiZAN

For all the anxiety over flooding, and the loss of thousands of homes and closed footpaths, the tides wash away something else. Memories.

Archaeologists have a posh phrase for memories lost on the tide. They say, “Intertidal heritage.” I like that. The stuff being submerged includes everything from pillboxes and ancient henges to prehistoric settlements.

The good news? Volunteers are trying to find this ‘stuff’ before it sinks forever. It’s like an Atlantis recovery programme. These are the same people that found the Mersea mammoth.

They work under a collective known as the Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network. Its an easy to remember acronym: CITiZAN. Local people are trained to become ‘tidal archeologists’. Citizens are recording their community’s history.

“Archaeology for the people,” said Mark Dixon (pictured left), one of the local members who found the tusk.

Essex is definitely one of the best places to join the archaeologists. Not because it has the UK’s longest coastline. But because is has the lowest tidal range. I keep thinking of Canute.

“We’re interested in any areas that are intertidal; that are exposed at low tide and covered up by high tide,” said Stephanie.

“You have wide open mud flats, and then marshes so it’s quite interesting in Essex. Offshore fish and salt production has been important here for thousands of years.”

The team has already mapped and recorded the skeletal remains of Thames sailing barges at Maldon, and fish traps and Tudor forts at Mersea. But its volunteers have barely begun to uncover what else is exposed at low tide.